AD in Residence: Western Colorado AD Miles Van Hee

You oversaw the $43.9 million renovation of the Mountaineer Bowl Event Complex stadium. The project was paid for entirely by private funds. Where did you see the most traction in fundraising for this project? What are your key takeaways that you can apply to future projects?

This project has had many attempts over the years, and we were so fortunate for the support of the many donors and university leaders, but most importantly for our main donor, Paul Rady, that funded the vast majority of the $43.9 million project in the Mountaineer Bowl at The Rady Family Sports Complex. We started in 2018 with what we thought was full state funding to address a simple functional and necessary press box for $5mm. That state funding fell through, and we started over from scratch to seek private funds. In 2019, the university started the Elevate Western campaign to specifically raise funds for the Mountaineer Bowl. We were also working on expanding our master facilities plan to incorporate a turf field. With the unwavering support of 1978 alumnus Paul Rady and his wife Katy, they agreed to fully fund our first ever turf field at the Katy O. Rady Turf Field, home of our Women’s Soccer Program. During the construction of the $2mm brand new facility, we proposed the vision of a new Mountaineer Bowl Press box. A year later, University Interim President Nancy Chisolm proposed the new press box for the Mountaineer Bowl to Paul Rady and he graciously agreed to invest in our project. This investment then expanded into a complete renovation of the entire complex of the Mountaineer Bowl and Katy O Rady Field at the Rady Family Sports Complex.

Our facility now encompasses a new press box with corporate suites, gameday locker rooms for Football, Track & Field and Soccer, a new turf playing field and track, an expanded scoreboard and videoboard, and lighting. The new Mountaineer Bowl at The Rady Family Sports Complex officially opened Saturday, September 7, for our first home game opener—the first ever night game under lights for the Mountaineers in our home stadium. We broke attendance records and finished the night off with a win against Midwestern State. In addition, we’ve had over 10 private donors who have invested from $25k to $1mm and many $10k and $5k donors, which has helped us garner an additional $2.2mm. We just finalized a major gift of $1mm to name the field in Mountaineer Bowl as the MOJO field with a generous donation from 1977 alumnus, Michael Johnson. The Mountaineer Bowl renovation was a two-year project, and the construction and architectural team from Mesa Properties were absolutely amazing to work with. 

My takeaways as an AD would be to stay heavily involved with the construction side and to keep communication high with all involved. In addition, continue to cultivate relationships with the entire Mountaineer community of donors, university staff, the local community, alumni, fans and friends of Western Colorado University. So many people played a key role in this project and will continue to play a key role in the future success of Mountaineer Athletics and Western Colorado University. I’m very fortunate to be surrounded by all who care so deeply about Mountaineer Athletics and our traditions. The support of our current president, Brad Baca, has been nothing short of phenomenal. Genuinely, this has been a team effort all around. The Mountaineer Bowl at The Rady Family Sports Complex will be transformative for our entire university and community, but especially for all our student-athletes, coaches and staff.

For both this project and broadly, how has your longevity at WCU positively impacted your ability to bring in major gifts? And what has been key to longevity and maintaining relationships throughout your time in Gunnison?

I’ve been a Mountaineer since 1990! I began as a wrestler, then assistant coach, and eventually became the Head Wrestling Coach in 1997. Then in 2017, I had the honor of becoming the Athletic Director for the university I love. I hope that when I talk to people about the possibility of them investing in our institution, they can sense the passion I have for all of Mountaineer Athletics. As a former athlete and coach myself, I understand the obstacles and the opportunities. I simply want to build upon the foundation that so many people have laid for Mountaineer Athletics. Many administrators, university leaders, alumni, coaches and staff have paved the way for building relationships with those that can make an impact. We have been working hard to continue to build upon those relationships and expand our outreach to others. And we will continue to build relationships for the future.

Being a team player on campus, building trust and relationships so that you’ve got the backing of the entire university to be able to raise that bar as a team is key. 

How will the department’s operations this fall change now that football will be back at the Mountaineer Bowl after two years of playing at Rady Field (home of the women’s soccer program)? What do you anticipate the effect that the change will have on both programs? The overall student-athlete experience? The fan experience, including boosters? Your staff?

The impact has been tremendous. Record-breaking attendance at the grand opening game is evidence that the fans are excited about our new facility. These amazing, state-of-the-art facilities will attract new recruits as well as help us retain our current student athletes. It is already making an impact on the Mountaineer spirit as we have expanded the game day atmosphere utilizing our new high-end Musco lights, which provide light shows that can be synchronized to music to create special effects, and our new 10mm 1250 sq ft video board — the largest in the RMAC. In addition, we’ve added a fan cam to engage our fans on the video board. The student body absolutely loves it. The WOW factor cannot be overstated. It is simply remarkable. The fans and athletes are proud and, honestly, still in a little disbelief that this is our new normal. The student-athletes have a facility that matches how they feel about being a Mountaineer. This is a championship-caliber facility. Facilities don’t win games, but they definitely elevate the esprit de corps and give the extra boost that makes a difference. 

As for how operations will change this fall, those changes will be palpable. For the past two years, we’ve had to create a football stadium on a soccer field. We had to set up makeshift press boxes, filming platforms, and coaches’ boxes out of conex shipping containers, as well as portable play clocks, portable bathrooms, concessions, and weatherport tents used as locker rooms for the home and visiting teams. We had to transport two teams of 70 in four rotating 15-passenger vans just to get them to the field from their main locker rooms. And because we were playing on a soccer field, we had to build padded walls on each end zone to meet safety criteria. These operations are a thing of the past. Fans had to sit on the mountain backing up to the soccer field in their own chairs in the dirt while watching for rocks and cactus for the past two years to watch the football games as there weren’t enough bleachers in that facility to accommodate all the fans. These will be memories our hardy fans will look back on with pride, but they will now enjoy having a place to sit inside this remarkable renovated stadium this fall, which includes optional reserved seatback seating. The new corporate suites at the renovated stadium have added a new layer of operations for us this season. The President’s Suite accommodates 50 people so that we can host our boosters and other dignitaries, as well as three suites that are available for groups to purchase. We’ve added a video board programming team to make sure we are utilizing our new board to the fullest. Something we’ve never had to do in the past. We also have a new concessions concourse, new ticketing procedures and reserved seating — again, adding new tasks for game-day operations. Our staff has taken everything in stride, even as they are working harder than ever before. But as we get more games under our belt, each week we will get more and more efficient. Everyone on the staff has been so supportive, as they understand the impact and importance of this new facility.

As for our teams, the soccer team has been gracious in sharing their field with football for the past two years, but I’m sure they are happy to have their field back as their own. And they now have new locker rooms in the new facility, so their experience is elevated as well. And the football team and outdoor track teams have been amazingly resilient for the past two years without a place to call their own. Never complaining, just working hard and getting the job done, as the football team made it to the playoffs last year and the outdoor track team had one of their best national finishes in 2023. For these programs, now that their new stadium is a reality, it has got to be a very surreal experience.

Prior to becoming an AD, you had a lot of success as a coach including being named DII National Coach of the Year and multiple national champions. What are some criteria you use in hiring coaches? What are things that are easy to miss in the hiring process?

Better people make better leaders. We look for coaches that can truly lead. Coaches that understand what it takes to be successful at the D2 level have the passion, work ethic and vision to create a culture of belonging and character. As the great John Wooden has said, “Be more concerned about your character than your reputation.” We all need to check our egos at the door and do what’s best for our student-athletes. Character is what you really are; your reputation is merely what others think you are. We’re looking to hire coaches that truly want to make an impact on our university and be ambassadors for their sport or position. Coaches who understand their role and how they are building the program for the next leader. Our coaches must wear many hats; however, character trumps all. At Western, coaches must also be great recruiters and understand how to utilize the resources they have and build relationships to expand their resources. In addition, great coaches must have outstanding relationships with their athletes. This is something that is easy to miss in the hiring process. Most coaches don’t list former athletes as references, and so it’s easy to miss their perspective, which is crucial. A coaching candidate might seem to check all the boxes, but if they can’t connect with their athletes, everything else is meaningless.

What is your short- and long-term vision for NIL at your school, in the RMAC and in DII?

Influxer has been a great start with our NIL platform as a co-licensed NIL merchandise deal available for all our student-athletes to activate multiple lines of merchandise to be sold via Influxer’s e-commerce platform. We just signed on 9 months ago, so we are in the early stages; however, many of our student-athletes have taken advantage of their platform to make a small profit. 

Most recently in August, we had a special opportunity to elevate our NIL platform by teaming up with current NFL star running back and Western alum, Austin Ekeler, with the Eksperience App. Eksperience is a first-of-its-kind tech NIL platform for our student-athletes and Western Colorado to connect fans directly with their favorite student-athletes in customizable ways that fit their style, personality and availability. Austin is the founder of Eksperience, the platform that is designed to break down the barriers between athletes and fans while building community around sports. We are proud to be the first university to sign on with Austin’s innovative NIL platform and provide another opportunity for our student-athletes to engage with our Mountaineer fans and community. Since we signed on with Austin, we have made national news in Sports Illustrated, resulting in over 2,000 new downloads of the Eksperience app, which has already provided revenues directly to our student-athletes.

If you had the authority to make any changes in DII, what are the 1-3 changes you would make for the betterment of the division?

I feel overall, DII is in a good spot. I would like to see the amateurism of DII held to a reasonable extent and keep the playing field level as much as possible by continuing the current model of capped scholarship equivalencies. I would also like to see DII eliminate the transfer portal but continue to allow student-athletes to transfer without penalty if they are in good academic standing. For the student-athletes not in good academic standing, I’d love to see a realistic standard met of transferable credits to make sure the student-athlete stays on schedule to graduate.